“What if someone demanded from you—as a journalist—to confront a disaster such as an earthquake or a flood? How would you make use of your profession and responsibility to help your community?”
These words were the prelude to a brainstorming session that kicked off a workshop planned and organised by the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR). The workshop required those attending to imagine a plan of how to face an imminent catastrophe.
The workshop was organised by the UN information office in Cairo together with ISDR and the Arab office for youth and environment. The aim was to instruct journalists on how to face and reduce the risks posed by disasters and to know the exact role expected of the media in such a scenario.
200 million victims
Participants gave different opinions, but most of them agreed that identifying the target audience and the relevant media were the first steps to putting a successful plan into motion, followed by addressing opinion leaders who could help greatly to convince and carry the message to the audience.
Making use of the different kinds of journalism such as reportage, feature articles, news, pictures and cartoons are essential to facilitate reaching the target audience.
The discussion began with a statistic: some 200 million people all over the world are affected by disasters every year. These include floods, tropical storms, earthquakes and fires. The knock-on effects centre on such matters as high population levels, poverty, environmental conditions and climate change, or on all these reasons.
The training schedule included rules of how to cover such disasters; starting with disseminating information beforehand and following up all incidents to the very end, supporting the coverage with advice to victims and officials, and the opinions of experts and the eyewitnesses. It is also very important to warn neighbouring countries because they could face similar disasters.
More training
Those attending demanded more training courses on the subject, stressing the importance of providing journalists from all over the world with the necessary information, as well as arranging meetings to exchange experiences.
The media plays an important role in reducing the risks of disasters. They can raise public awareness; warn about the threats and outcomes of catastrophes that could affect the world in general and the third world in particular; and have a direct effect on audiences and the ability to completely change negative behaviour patterns.
Most victims of disasters are from among the world’s poor, especially the weaker ones: the old, women and children. There are clear examples of this in the victims of the New Year tsunami, the earthquake in Iran, floods in Sudan, and the rock slide at Duweiqa in Egypt, as well as the destructive hurricanes that batter the American and Caribbean coasts every year.
Anticipating disaster
The Arab World will be a prime candidate for disaster, since it will be greatly affected by climate change,” Tina Ramstad, representative of the regional office of West Asia and North Africa affiliated to the ISDR, said. “Because of the nature of its geography, its economic and social combination, and because its countries depend on resources that can be easily affected such as agriculture, water resources and fishing, disasters have to be expected.” Such disasters, she said, may affect coastal regions, increase the salinity of underground water, and decrease water resources. She warned that such disasters in the Arab World may cause social and economic slowdown. The Arab World produces from five to six per cent of the gases that lead to the greenhouse effect, and this percentage is equal to the percentage the Arab World represents in the whole world. By contrast, the United States causes 25 per cent of these gases, the same as China. The increase in sea level will affect Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt, especially the Nile Delta.
Scary statistics
To solve a crisis of this kind, Ramstad proposed building dams, using sand dunes, planting palms and trees and preparing new residential areas ready for victims.
“Satellite photographs prove that the Mediterranean Sea level will increase by some 30cm to 100cm by the end of the century, meaning that the Nile Delta and some coastal shores will be submerged by water”, said Mohamed Mahmoud al-Sayed, deputy coordinator at the Arab network for environment and development.
It was stressed that media coverage should not only include scary statistics but should propose different ways to reduce or face the disaster, train people on how to face it, and set up a plan to protect schools, hospitals, and suchlike. Spending one dollar in protection against disasters saves seven dollars spent to remedy their results.